Bryan Grimes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bryan Grimes, Jr. (November 2, 1828 – August 14, 1880) was a North Carolina plantation owner and a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He was the last man in the Army of Northern Virginia to be appointed by Robert E. Lee as a major general. Grimes led the final attack of that army shortly before its surrender to Union forces at Appomattox Court House on the morning of April 9, 1865.
Contents |
[edit] Early life and career
Bryan Grimes was born on the ancestral family plantation, "Grimesland," in Pitt County, North Carolina. His father was a prosperous planter. His mother, the daughter of a prominent general from Georgia, died when Grimes was only four years old, and his older sister for a time raised him. He attended school in Nash County and an academy in Little Washington before attending a noted private school in Hillsborough. Grimes, at the age of fifteen, enrolled in the University of North Carolina. He graduated four years later.
In 1849, his father gave him the Grimesland estate, along with control over its 100 slaves. On April 9, 1851, he married Elizabeth Hilliard Davis, but she died only six years later. The couple had four children, one of whom, Bryan Grimes III, died in childhood. A grief-stricken Grimes later traveled to Europe.
[edit] Civil War
Upon his return to the United States, he was elected as a delegate to North Carolina's secession convention. He resigned from the commission after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession and joined the fledgling army as the major of the 4th North Carolina. He saw his first combat action at the First Battle of Manassas in Virginia, and soon afterwards assumed command of the regiment with the rank of colonel. Grimes led the 4th North Carolina in the Peninsula Campaign, but missed the Maryland Campaign's Battle of Antietam due to a severe leg injury incurred when his horse kicked him.
He returned to field duty in temporary command of an infantry brigade within the division of Daniel Harvey Hill. Grimes fought at the Battle of Fredericksburg, where his men repelled a Union attack. He returned to regimental command before the May 1863 Chancellorsville Campaign. During the first day's fighting at Gettysburg, Grimes' regiment was the first organized Confederate unit to enter the streets of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was in charge of the rear guard during a part of the army's retreat into Virginia following the three-day battle. On September 15, 1863, he married Charlotte Emily Bryan, and they eventually had ten children. Again, another son named Bryan died in childhood.
During the Overland Campaign of May 1864, Grimes was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and given permanent command of his brigade of North Carolinians. That autumn, he fought in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign as part of the army of Jubal A. Early. When Maj. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur was killed at Cedar Creek, Grimes assumed command of his division and led it for the rest of the war. He was promoted to major general in February 1865, the last man appointed to that rank in the Army of Northern Virginia.
He served in the trenches surrounding Petersburg and joined the army of Robert E. Lee on the retreat that ended when the way was blocked by Federal columns near Appomattox Court House. He led an attack that temporarily cleared Federals from the Lynchburg Road, briefly opening up a possible route of escape for a portion of Lee's army. However, Lee chose to surrender instead of risking useless further bloodshed.
[edit] Postbellum career
After the war, Grimes returned to North Carolina and settled briefly in Raleigh. He subsequently moved back to Grimesland in January 1867 and resumed farming. Ten years later, he was named as a trustee of the University of North Carolina.
In 1880, Grimes was ambushed and killed by a hired assassin named William Parker, presumably to prevent him from testifying at a criminal trial. Parker was later acquitted, but was lynched by an angry mob. Grimes was buried in the family cemetery on his plantation, Grimesland, about five miles northwest of Chocowinity, North Carolina. A monument to the fallen former Confederate stands in Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in that town.
In April 1898, the U.S. Army established "Camp Bryan Grimes" in Raleigh and named it for the former Confederate general. It served as a mustering point for North Carolina troops in the Spanish-American War.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans local camp in Greenville, North Carolina, was designated as the Major Bryan Grimes Camp 1488.
